Persepolis Rising

I don't think Dick Dastardly is winning today...

Today saw the release of the latest book in my favourite science fiction series in a very long time, The Expanse.

The series, written by two authors under the name James S.A. Corey, has been releasing regularly every year for seven years now and I’ve been up to date for the last three. I heard about the series on one of iFanboy’s year end all media wrap up podcasts and so we decided to check out the first four episodes of the TV show adaption that had just started. We were hooked from the pilot on and I instantly bought the first book on amazon. By the time season one finished up six weeks later I had blast through the first two books completely, having listened the the audiobooks all day in my van and read the physical books in the evenings.

I forgot the new book was out today but I got the email from audible reminding me my pre-order of the latest book, Persepolis Rising, was now available to download and I was on it straight away.

I have purposefully avoided reading any advance chapters or even a blurb before hand so was really surprised when the book starts and there has been a really significant time jump. A lot of things have changed since the events of the last book in the series. I’m about eight chapters in so far and this book really does feel like you could jump into the series right here. You shouldn’t, as you would miss out on a lot of character nuance and developments might not be totally clear, but if you were cool with jumping in in the middle you wouldn’t be lost either.

Reading the last two books in the series has given me a lot of appreciation for how the tv show is adapting the series. It differs from a lot of other adaptions where they will be going from book to book, with this they are adapting the series as a whole. There are things in the first episodes of the show that have only just been introduced in the book but have been happening in the background all along. On the flip side there are characters and plots early in the books that either haven’t come up yet or came into play a lot later in the show. The important thing is that they are capturing the feel and main points from the series. It is on Netflix in the UK and I believe Amazon Prime Video in the US, I recommend everyone check it out and then go read the first book!

I haven’t even talked about what the series is about, but if any of what I have said interests you just go in blind and check it out. If you need more of an elevator pitch though it is a sci fi series set a few hundred years in the future and is one part Game of Thrones, one part Alien with a sprinkling of House of Cards for good measure. Hopefully that has done a good job selling it.

I’m going to get back to it, I need to know whats going on on board the Roci.